Chapter 3. Shocks to the System
Ziva arrived at NCIS a few moments ahead of Tony, cup of herbal tea in hand. Since they began dating, they had gone out of their way to not be seen as a couple. Once a week they would arrive at the same time, on random days, just to make it look like they weren't consciously avoiding each other. They kept up their barbs to each other. They invented fake dates with others.
They knew, as trained investigators, to never get into a situation where their relationship would be observed. They never even kissed in the building, just in case something happened to cause them to be discovered.
Ziva walked into the building, flashing her credentials to the guards at the door before walking to the elevator. Once inside, she pressed the button that would bring her to the proper floor. She waited impatiently for the doors to open before hearing the ding for her destination.
She walked out of the elevator and made her way to the bullpen. As it came into view, she stopped cold. "Tony, how did you beat me here," she asked. She continued her way to her desk, seeing McGee typing on his computer before dropping her bag behind her own desk.
"Clean living, Ziva. And, the stairs are faster," he grinned at her, taking a sip of coffee. Secretly, her heart melted. Being at work, they both had their guards up, so she was able to cover it easily.
"Is Gibbs here yet," she asked the two men. Her eyes were drawn to the catwalk to see Director Vance walking down. Even at two in the morning, his suit still looked impeccable.
McGee answered, "Nope, he called me, told me to call Tony, and said he'd meet us here. I've already been down to Interrogation, and I know he's not there."
Vance walked down from the catwalk and up to the team. "He's not going to be here," he stated. "Gibbs was hit by a semi-truck on his way here. He's being airlifted to Bethesda now."
Silent shock greeted this statement. Ziva, being the most able to supress her emotions, was the first to break the quiet. "Is he okay," she whispered.
"Don't know yet, David. Dr. Mallard's on his way to the hospital to sit with him. All I know is that he'll need hours of surgery before anyone can see him. In the meantime," Vance looked at DiNozzo, "At Senior Field Agent, this is your team. You are now the Acting Special Agent in Charge here, and you have a suspect in Interrogation."
Tony was still in shock. "Of course," he cleared his throat before he could go on, "Director. Um," he stammered, "Right. McGee, what do we have on Reynolds." DiNozzo waited a moment for McGee to react. "McGee," he shouted, as McGee started. "What do we have on Reynolds?"
McGee turned back to his computer. "Uh, D.C. Metro picked him up on for doing sixty-five in a forty zone. They were just about to give him a ticket when they caught the BOLO we had out on him. They took him into custody and delivered him here." McGee looked up at Vance. "Director, does Abby know about Gibbs? If not, I know she'd rather be there with him."
"Ms. Scuito knows but is needed in her Lab, McGee. Metro is delivering Reynolds' car here within the hour and she'll need to go over it. However, I told Dr. Mallard to call when Gibbs is out of surgery, and she can go visit then. Any questions," Vance's tone left no doubt that no questions were encouraged or would be tolerated. "Then I suggest you get to work. If you need anything, I'll be at Bethesda." With that, Vance left, heading to the elevator.
No one said anything for a minute. The silence was broken by DiNozzo exhaling loudly. "Wow. Okay, let's get this interrogation done so we can go to the hospital. McGee, go help Abby. If she can get done with the car before Gibbs wakes up, the two of you can go to the hospital. If Vance asks, tell him I said so. If she's not done, you finish when she leaves, then you can go." McGee nodded and headed for the rear stairs. "C'mon, Zi, let's go talk to Reynolds," DiNozzo said as he walked around his desk, picking up his coffee. She moved to meet him and they headed to the elevator together.
Once inside, Ziva stepped to the rear of the car, leaning against the wall, while DiNozzo pushed the proper button and waited for the doors to close. As soon as they did, he felt a hand rest on his shoulder. He reached across his body and held her hand, DiNozzo looking up at the floor readout, Ziva looking at the floor. Both were lost in thought, so lost that they didn't realize until the doors began to close that they had reached their floor. DiNozzo stuck his hand out to stop the doors. Both took a deep breath and altered their faces to put up their emotional walls.
They walked down the hallway, stopping just short of the agent standing in front of Interrogation Room 1 and entering the observation room. To their right, they could see Reynolds sitting in a chair in the interrogation room. Their left held another window into the other interrogation room. Without an occupant, it was dark. Opposite the door sat the night duty technician in front of a bank of monitors and computers. He looked up as they entered.
"Sorry to hear about Special Agent Gibbs, Tony," he said. "Any word on his condition?"
"None, Jerry. Ducky's with him until he gets out of surgery, then Abby will join him, and McGee once they finish processing the car." DiNozzo walked to the window, Ziva at his side. Both were consciously blocking out the condition of their team leader to focus on the job at hand. Neither were completely successful.
They both took in Reynolds as he sat there, head hung low. Tall, with short cropped brown hair, longer than military regulations allowed, but near enough to not get him in too much trouble. He had a tattoo peeking out of the top of his white polo style shirt, almost too high to be in regulations. He was also dirty, spots of dried mud across from the bottom left to the right shoulder.
DiNozzo looked over at Ziva, and when she looked back, silent communication took place. Ziva nodded and DiNozzo handed her his cell phone. As he turned to walk to the door, he grabbed the file folder from Jerry, and a small paper bag from the desk, as he made his way past him. He closed the door behind him, nodded to the agent guarding the other door and walked past him, entering Interrogation Room 1.
Reynolds looked up as the door opened, and Tony stepped inside. "My name is Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, Petty Officer." He moved to the chair on the opposite side of the table and sat down, his back to Ziva behind the window. "I have a few questions for you." He opened the folder and began to read.
Reynolds was getting antsy as he waited for a sign of attention from the man sitting across from him. DiNozzo continued to read the folder for several minutes, continuing to ignore Reynolds.
"I thought you had some questions for me, Sir," Reynolds asked. Tony simply looked up at him, took a sip of coffee, and looked back down at the folder.
Ziva smiled as she watched DiNozzo go into full 'Gibbs Mode.' When he was the team leader when Gibbs had 'retired/gone on vacation,' DiNozzo's interrogation style would bounce between one that was an almost clone of his Boss and his usual, if atypical, interrogation technique that he'd once dubbed, "Shock and Awe."
To which Tim quipped, "Yeah, shocking that it awes the suspect." That earned Tim a head slap from DiNozzo, and earned DiNozzo a harder head slap from Gibbs. Ziva chuckled at the memory, a tear joining it for Gibbs.
With Gibbs out of action for the near future, DiNozzo went back to cloning Gibbs.
Finally, after several more minutes, DiNozzo looked up from the folder and looked right at Reynolds, leaning forward slightly. He stared at the suspect for another thirty seconds, by which time Reynolds began to squirm. When the question came, it was almost a whisper.
"Why did you kill Petty Officer Carmichael?"
Reynolds' eyes shot open. "What? Jimmy's dead? I didn't kill him. I swear I didn't."
DiNozzo leaned even closer, "Now why don't I believe you." His tone revealed that it wasn't a question.
Reynolds gasped for air like a fish. "Sir, Jimmy was my best friend, I never would have hurt him, you got to believe me." He clutched his stomach. "Oh, I don't feel so good."
"Tell me, Petty Officer, was it for the money? Was it because he wouldn't let you in on his little scheme? Or maybe, you were the brains behind it and he just got in the way," DiNozzo stared into his face as he waited for the inevitable.
"What scheme," he asked, truly curious. DiNozzo could see that this line of questioning was wrong somehow, so he changed tactics.
"We'll come back to that. Let's start with the how, and we'll work our way to the why." DiNozzo sat back and waited for Reynolds to speak.
"Sir, I didn't kill him. I couldn't have. I wouldn't. He was my…my best friend." Reynolds was near sobbing by this point.
"Where did you get the dirt, Petty Officer?" DiNozzo could see this hit an immediate nerve.
"Nowhere. I fell near the warehouse." Reynolds closed his eyes and his whole body drooped when he heard what came out of his mouth.
DiNozzo didn't smile. "And why were you at the warehouse past midnight, far past your duty shift, Petty Officer?"
Reynolds' eyes darted around the room, looking for an answer. "I went to see Jimmy, Petty Officer Carmichael. He wasn't there. He had just started on the overnight shift last week and I needed his share of the rent money from him. I had an dental appointment at 0700, and would be there until at least 0900, after which I'd be off for the day. Jimmy was going to go to see his sister for a couple hours, but I wanted to get the rent paid, so I went to see him since I wouldn't see him again until he got back in the afternoon," Reynolds finished with a sob.
Back in Observation, DiNozzo's phone rang. Ziva looked at the Caller ID and picked it up. "DiNozzo's phone, this is David." She paused, "No, he's in Interrogation, I am holding his phone for him." She listened to the person on the other end of the line, her eyes widening slightly as she did. She asked, "Are you sure?" When she got her answer, she nodded and closed off the call. She put the phone down and picked up her PDA.
Palmer just called…He said… Having finished her message, she sent it to DiNozzo's PDA.
When DiNozzo's PDA began buzzing, signifying that he was receiving a message from Ziva, he looked down at it, then back at Reynolds.
He let his gaze fall on the nearly broken Petty Officer for over a minute before he quietly asked, "Does you family know you're gay, Petty Officer?"
Reynolds eyes shot to DiNozzo, widening by the second, before his entire body was racked with sobs. He cried for a few seconds before he shook his head.
"Did Petty Officer Carmichael's parents know he was gay," Tony asked, sympathy starting to creep into his voice.
Reynolds just hung his head. He whispered, "No. Neither of our families knew. Wouldn't have bothered them, but with 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' you just don't take the chance. Too easy to let it slip." Reynolds raised his eyes to DiNozzo, daring him to ask the next question.
Finally, DiNozzo did. "How long has it been since you broke up?"
Reynolds' eyes, while still wet, now flashed with fury. "Three days ago. Bastard said he was tired of 'living a lie,' and didn't want anything more to do with me. He said he found the love of his life, one that made him happy. I gave him the best year of my life, and he throws it away. If you ask me, he got what was coming to him, and I'm damn glad it did," he finished, his tone a throaty growl. "And I'd do it again if I could find out what cheap piece of man-meat he dumped me for."
"So, because he broke your heart, you shot him," DiNozzo said. He wasn't prepared for the reaction.
Reynolds' eyes flew open. "Shot? I didn't shoot him. I just wanted him hurt. I didn't know hitting him with a shovel would kill him," Reynolds finished, confusion back on his face.
DiNozzo stared at him for a moment, before glancing down at his buzzing PDA again. The message simply read, "Calling Palmer."
DiNozzo stood. "Okay. You say you didn't shoot him." He picked up the paper bag, removing a plastic tube with a cotton swab on the end. "This will tell me for certain." He moved around to Reynolds' side of the table and leaned down. "This will tell me if you fired a gun recently. All I need to do is touch it to your hands. May I?"
Reynolds nodded an DiNozzo rubbed the cotton swab on his hands and the cuffs of his shirt. He then placed it into the tube and cracked a small vial on the end of it. "Now, if this turns blue, you fired a weapon. If it doesn't change, you didn't."
Both stared as the liquid didn't change color. DiNozzo looked at Reynolds, nodded his head, and moved back around to his side of the table.
Sitting down, he said, "Okay, take me through what happened, Petty Officer."
Reynolds took a deep breath, tears welling in his eyes. "I was a mess after Jimmy broke it off. Finally, I decided that if I could just talk to him, everything would work out. We'd had fights before, but they never lasted more than a couple hours. When I went to see him, we talked, and he told me that it was over," his voice hitched at this point, and he took a deeper breath to calm himself.
"He told me that he still loved me, but he had a career in the Navy, and didn't want to lose that. He said he met someone special that would be a great cover for him, but she knew all about him. She didn't know about me, and he said he would never tell her. I asked if we could still see each other, and he got all stern and said, 'No.' All I saw was red," his voice had started to become angry.
He continued, growing louder by each word and tears falling from his eyes. "I yelled at him, screamed at him. Wanted him to see how much he meant to me. I kissed him, but he pushed me away. He turned around and walked away. I-I-I just couldn't believe that he could just walk away like that. So, I grabbed a shovel from nearby where they were doing some work on the water lines, and ran at him. I just wanted to scare him, that's all. But when I got to him, I didn't even think. I just swung at the back of his head." His voice was almost a whisper now. "I thought I killed him, and felt for a pulse. It was there and regular, but really soft, and he wasn't awake. I wiped the handle with my shirt, probably where I got the dirt on it, and threw it as far as I could."
His eyes looked pleadingly at DiNozzo. "You got to believe me, Sir. I never wanted him dead. I just was so mad that I blanked out. I could see what I was doing, but it was as someone else was doing it. I stood there for a few minutes and realized what I'd done. I got scared and took off, stayed with a friend. I was going to try to sneak back into the apartment to get some clothes when I got pulled over. I swear, when I left, he was still alive. He even started to move around a little."
DiNozzo nodded and gathered up his papers. He stood and began walking to the door. "I'll check out your story. In the meantime, we're taking you into custody for murder." Reynolds' entire face went white. DiNozzo then said, "If your story checks out, they'll probably drop that charge for assault and battery, but that's up to JAG."
Reynolds looked at DiNozzo for a moment, then doubled over, crying.
DiNozzo exited quietly. Once outside, he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. He heard a door open and felt Ziva's presence before she took his hand.
She looked at the far wall, both deep in thought, and he said softly, "Promise me, you'll never use a shovel."
He could hear the grin on Ziva's face as she said, "No chance, my little hairy butt. Too messy." Tony grinned with her.
They stood there for a few minutes, silent, before going to check on Abby and McGee's progress.